Politics & Government

Task Force Presents Findings

The Community Budget Task Force presented its findings to the West Chester Area School District.

The unveiled its Community Budget Task Force findings Wednesday night at East High School as the district tries to close a five million dollar budget deficit for the 2012-2013 school year.

“These are findings, not recommendations,” said district superintendant Dr. Jim Scanlon.  “We’ve got to find ways to continue to close the budget gap.”

Scanlon added, “After tonight, we’re going to take these findings to the administration and the school board and figure out a way to sort through them and prioritize.

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The full report by the Budget Task Force totals over 150 pages and represents over 2,000 man-hours of work, and it includes numerous ways the district could save money and generate revenue.

Perhaps the most controversial finding was that the school district could save over $1.3 million by closing one of the elementary schools.

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In another potentially controversial finding, the Class Size Committee discovered that if elementary school classes were increased by one to three students it could save the district between $213,000 and one million dollars.

“There are no rules from the state mandating class size,” said Matt McKenzie, who worked on the committee.  “We did discover that our current class limits are among the highest in the county.”

McKenzie added that the current average elementary class is 24; his committee found that increasing that average to 27 would save the district money.

McKenzie also said that if the district limit for class size were raised to 33 only 16 percent of elementary students in the district would be in classes with more than 30 students.

Dr. Scanlon said that the report by the task force only covers $3.2 million of the district’s five million dollar deficit, and that the difference would have to be made up in tax increases or further cuts.

On the revenue side, the task force looked into selling advertisements in the district as well as creating before and after school programs.

According to the presentation advertising could bring in as much as $69,250 in the first year, and by 2015 revenue generated by advertising could reach as much as $430,000. 

For before and after school programs, the district could make between $193,000 and $364,000 with the biggest chunks of that coming from a pseudo-daycare program at the elementary level and a sports summer camp program at the elementary and middle school levels.

The task force also found that an activity fee for all students participating in extracurricular activities could generate over $350,000 in revenue for the district.

The projected activity fee would be in the $25-75 range per activity with a cap at $200 per family.

Please see the attached PDFs of the complete Task Force summary and report in the picture window for more information.


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